Case Studies
We have supported local authorities, developers, communities, and design teams on hundreds of schemes throughout the North West of England.
Here is a selection of case studies highlighting how we can support your scheme.
Howells Architects
Millers Quay, Wirral
Delivered by waterside regeneration specialists Peel Waters, in partnership with Pension Insurance Corporation and Wirral Council, Millers Quay represents the first major residential development at Wirral Waters. Designed by architects Howells, the £130m scheme has transformed a once disused dockside into a vibrant new waterside community of 500 one and two bedroom apartments.
The development brings city residents closer to nature with a location and identity unique to the region. It was awarded the Homes England Award for Masterplanning at the Housing Design Awards 2025.
Richard Mawdsley, Director of Development at Wirral Waters, commented: “A bespoke Places Matter Design Review Panel for Wirral Waters has been in place since 2017 and this has enabled us to build the knowledge of the team there to work across the whole development. Millers Quay was always about creating a new picture postcard for Wirral, homes that celebrate our heritage whilst creating a great place for our residents. The Design Review challenged us to be more colourful – which has become a signature of the development’s success”.
The Design Review Panel of four experts covered landscape, architecture, heritage and regeneration. The Panel’s main impression was that this was a well-zoned and rigorous scheme. Comments included enclosure and variety of the spaces and colour of the buildings.
Partner at Howells, Alan McCartney, underscored the value of the process and the team’s core ideas for the scheme. "Undertaking the independent design review for Millers Quay was an invaluable process for our team. The panel’s insightful comments helped move the scheme forward, offering fresh perspectives while, importantly for me, validating the core ideas and design ambition we had proposed for the site. This approach underpins the architecture of Millers Quay, which combines colour, confidence and thoughtful detailing to create high-quality homes, each with a waterside view, and transforms a post-industrial dockside into a vibrant, sustainable neighbourhood with a strong sense of place."
SimpsonHaugh
New Jackson, Manchester
SimpsonHaugh Architects have been working with Renaker on the design and delivery of New Jackson, since 2014, to transform a 7.8ha brownfield site on the south western edge of Manchester city centre.
The site’s location – physically cut off from the city centre, to the north, by the River Medlock and from Hulme, to the south, by the ‘Mancunian Way’ - meant that it had become perceived as being separate from either area, and by 2014 comprised, in the main, of surface car parking and low grade industrial units.
The New Jackson masterplan aims to create a high-density residential neighbourhood, delivering 6,400 homes and amenities including restaurants, retail, convenience stores, a school, medical centre and dental practice and 3.6ha of new public realm.
The project has developed through five Places Matter Design Review Panels, held in 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2022, which have each looked at detailed planning applications for separate developments at New Jackson and provided comment on the masterplan as it was evolving at each stage.
Ian Simpson said “this valuable and constructive engagement has provided the opportunity for ongoing discussions about scale, density, public realm, place and materiality that have assisted in refining and resolving the ambitions of the masterplan on an ongoing basis. The conversations with Places Matter have helped us, for example, to review the benefits of building fewer, taller buildings and to adjust the masterplan over time to deliver more extensive and meaningful public realm.
The integrated provision of a linked series of high quality landscaped public spaces is key to identifying New Jackson as a new ‘place’ and as a destination in its own right and to making legible, intuitive connections into and across the site, knitting New Jackson and Hulme back into the fabric of the city core.
Ian Simpson added “the reviews have both challenged and supported our team, helping to interrogate issues and assisting us, as an architectural practice, by debating and collaborating with respected, independent, third-party reviewers in validating and endorsing the design approach being taken.”
Delivery of this neighbourhood is ongoing. Completed developments at Deansgate Square and Crown Street have provided 3,028 new homes in seven tall buildings ranging from 67 to 24 storeys, as well as a number of townhouses. A GP medical centre, dental practice, primary school and day care centre have opened alongside convenience stores, restaurants, coffee shops and retail units.
A public space alongside the River Medlock provides a new connection between Castlefield and First Street and the public park at the heart of Crown Street includes a children’s play area and a segregated cycle route connecting the Chester Road cycleway with the bridge over the Mancunian way to Hulme. 988 further apartments are currently under construction with 1,746 more currently going through the planning process. All of these schemes have been through Places Matter Design Review Panel sessions.
The ambitions of the framework to:
establish a vibrant, safe, secure and sustainable community;
provide meaningful and enjoyable public places and legible connections;
knit Great Jackson Street into the fabric of the city core;
create a new neighbourhood with its own identity, which is seen as a destination in its own right
and to do all of the above whilst delivering significant densities of population, are clearly being achieved.
Photo Credits: Dan Hopkinson
Matt Brook Architects
Regents Park, Salford
Regent Park, Salford, lies at a gateway position between Salford and Manchester city centres. At its heart is a placemaking-led, people-first vision with a new urban park to provide much needed green space for the residents of Salford. The Masterplan seeks to create a safe, walkable and inclusive neighbourhood where nature and architecture work together harmoniously, fostering a community that prioritises liveability and wellbeing.
Ten new buildings are gathered around this new park which will deliver a new community including 3,300 new homes and 10,000sqm of commercial and community space. The location, typology, orientation, footprint and height of buildings deliver a sustainable level of density whilst maximising liveability, on-site open space, and sunlight levels into the park.
Matt Brook, Founder Director of MattBrookArchitects, said “as a regular Chair of Design Review, I have a firm belief in the process itself. This is why I’m always happy to test, discuss and seek a critique on my own propositions. Such an approach can validate what works, such as our warm colour tones in this case, as well as suggesting new ideas for improvements if they are needed”.
The linear park is designed to enhance pedestrian access and connectivity between Salford and Manchester City Centre, whilst providing direct access to nature, with over two hectares of naturalistic planting along with over 150 new trees and SUDS to enhance biodiversity. Dwellings, gathered around the park, benefit from dual-aspect layouts, natural ventilation, high levels of sunlight and daylight, with views to the park maximised to enhance wellbeing. Establishing a sense of community and fostering neighbourliness is a fundamental aspect of the vision for Regent Park.
Annie Coombs, Chair of the Design Review Panel said “the Panel welcomed seeing this at an early stage and being given the conceptual background. The quality and depth of the analysis were felt to be exemplary, as was the obvious multi-disciplinary design approach. The Panel was drawn to the sketch of the buildings, which conveys the Big Idea”.
She added “The ‘swoop’ was felt to add a real sense of orientation, but we asked that the team test the size of the steps between the point towers and whether the Western blocks might be taller. We were clear that Salford has character and grit, so suggested the use of artists and poets to thread additional layers of sense and delight through the cultural narrative of your proposals”.
Levitt Bernstein
Deansgate Gardens
Deansgate Gardens development will create a new neighbourhood in the heart of Bolton Town Centre and provide 167 homes for private rent, with generous outdoor spaces that aim to create a desirable new community in a central location, designed by Levitt Bernstein for Placefirst.
The masterplan is driven by the area's context and landscape, relating back to the fine grain layout during Bolton’s industrial peak. New links to a regenerated River Croal are created to ensure this asset can be brought into greater use. Deansgate Gardens becomes a key linking route, bringing people to and from the nearby civic quarter.
Phil Jones, Development Director, Placefirst said “We found the design review process hugely beneficial. Over three sessions, our design team worked collaboratively with the review panel as the project evolved, incorporating varied expert perspectives that supported a smooth planning process and enhanced the final development”.
Homes are spread across two apartment buildings and six blocks of stacked townhouses, each supported by generous external amenity and shared communal spaces. Varied outdoor spaces are located throughout, both at ground level and elevated. Diverse internal shared spaces seek to provide as many options as possible for residents to socialise, work, eat, exercise, and relax.
Gillian Harrison, Project Architect, said “it’s been an exciting journey to turn a surface car park in to an impressive new neighbourhood for the town. The scheme moves from the bustle of the retail and civic centre, down the hill, to meet the River Croal, offering a variety of homes across a steep and tightly constrained site. The scheme is generous, well-lit and has private garden spaces for residents, but still manages to feels like a fully integrated and permeable part of the town”.
The design review process worked closely alongside the officers at Bolton Planning Department, as the design team changed from the first iteration. Our bespoke Bolton Design Review Panel ensured consistency across all three Design Reviews.
Novus
Talbot Road, Trafford
The scheme for 83 houses and 47 apartments first came to Places Matter in April 2017 and was for a suburban response to a brownfield site, the former Itron factory. The Panel urged Miller Homes to consider a much higher density and more contemporary typologies, with an urban street pattern. Following a second Design Review it was suggested that to help finalise the details of a much improving scheme the design team might usefully consider answering the question – “what might someone in Holland do?”
David Brackley, Technical Director at Miller Homes, felt that despite some initial frustration with the process the Design Review actually added to the overall development: “The Design Review process really challenged us to push the boundaries of both design and what we, as a business, were willing to do. The result is a successful, award-winning development which has exceeded our expectations. In addition to the development itself the team also learned a considerable amount in relation to both the design process but also in overcoming the challenges presented by the unique design. Having seen what a success Novus has become we wouldn’t hesitate to undertake a similar project”
The site as consented and developed will have a total of 91 houses 2, 3 and 4 bedrooms, in two and three storey configurations, many with in curtilage under croft parking and 191 apartments, 1 and 2 bedroomed, with ‘Sky Gardens’ and communal green spaces.
Brockholes Visitor Centre, Preston
The Brockholes Visitor Centre is made up of a ‘floating world’ of small structures on an island pontoon for the Brockholes Wetlands Nature Reserve, near Preston. This site-sensitive design provides flood protection - essential given that it is sited within 127 hectares of mixed wetlands and ancient woodlands. The inspiration for the design is taken from the marsh Arab villages of Iraq.
Whole-building, embodied-energy analysis was undertaken which resulted in specifying materials of low embodied energy, such as structural timber and oak roofing shakes. The environmental strategy also included natural ventilation throughout, state of the art insulation and glazing, rigorous draught proofing, grey water use and a biomass boiler.
Adam Khan said “we responded to the wild natural beauty of this site and the environmental demands of the client. Places Matter Design Review helped realise the final design in response to a number of competing demands”.
Hodder Architects
RHS Welcome Building
The RHS Welcome Building is a sustainable and engaging pavilion, with ground source heat pumps, rainwater harvesting, natural cross ventilation, and green roofs. The main building is conceived as a rhythm of tree structures supporting an overarching timber diagrid and accommodates visitor reception, seasonal sales floor, café and garden centre with ‘pods’.
Clad in treated larch but with large areas of glazing and a central roof light, the resultant building creates an uplifting space as visitors arrive and leave the gardens. The building was chosen through an invited competition.
Stephen Hodder said “we have supported the process of Places Matter Design Review for many years and brought many schemes of varying scales and nature to the Panel. We find it the best way to get a constructive challenge to our initial thinking before we proceed to final design stages”.
